The IT infrastructure of a growing business also becomes larger, more complex, and more difficult to secure. Each device produces many different activity and security logs which can provide critical security information, but need to be reviewed by specialists.
Security Operations Centers (SOCs) play a critical role in protecting organizations from cybersecurity attacks by centralizing expertise to service the entire organization.
While there are several implementation models, organizations can often benefit the most from a fully outsourced and managed SOC. To fully understand the benefits of a managed SOC, we must first understand the role of the SOC in managing cybersecurity detection and response.
What Is A SOC?
A Security Operations Center (SOC) provides a single point of coordination for security experts to analyze, prioritize, and further investigate security alerts and signs of malicious behavior. The SOC can also provide a single point of coordination and management of other security initiatives.
SOCs can be implemented as a physical location, a virtual team, or acquired as an outsourced resource. SOCs require specialized security tools and highly trained IT security professionals to be effective.
What Does A SOC Do?
Sometimes called an Information Security Operations Center, a SOC monitors the entire IT infrastructure of the organization full time – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and for all 365 days of the year. SOC teams use tools, processes and their experience to:
Prioritize security alerts and anomalous behavior
Analyze alerts as potentially malicious (or false alarms)
Investigate malicious activity
Respond to cyberattacks directly or alert managed detection and response (MDR) teams
SOCs collect data and event logs from across the entire IT environment, and can play a pivotal role in identifying, protecting against, and responding to attacks against the organization. Typical threats can include, but certainly will not be limited to phishing, malware, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, ransomware, and unauthorized data exfiltration.
A SOC’s primary purpose is to maintain, monitor, and constantly improve an organization’s cybersecurity technologies and capabilities. Depending upon the needs of the organization, the SOC may also play a role in:
Anticipating threats (gathering cyber threat intelligence, etc.)
Managing the centralized log repository (security information and event management (SIEM) tools, security data lake, etc.)
Managing risk and compliance requirements
Patches and updates
Proactive threat hunting and monitoring for attacks that did not trigger alerts
Recovering lost or stolen data and determining compromised assets
Security strategy (architecture design, incident response strategy, etc.)
Tool and alert tuning (reduce false alarms, improve log value, etc.)
Vulnerability detection, assessment, and mitigation
The exact role of the SOC and where they might receive or handoff alerts for threat investigation depends upon the type of SOC deployed and other security and incident response infrastructure.
Types Of SOCs
SOCs tend to mimic Network Operations Centers (NOCs) in structure, but instead of operational efficiency the SOC will focus on security alerts and will also incorporate alerts from servers, endpoints, applications, and cloud resources. We go into more detail in Types of Security Operations Centers, but as a quick summary most organizations will implement one of five general types of SOCs:
Multifunction SOC / NOC
Dedicated SOC
Command SOC
Co-Managed SOC
SOC-as-a-Service (SOCaaS)
Multifunction SOC / NOC
Multifunctions SOC / NOC centers combine NOC and SOC functions to monitor network operations and security. These centers can be less expensive to maintain because they share expertise, tools, and alert monitoring.
However, networking concerns often take priority, especially since network improvements are easier to quantify for return on investment (ROI), and security concerns can be easily marginalized. This option is best for small enterprises and often does not survive the growth of the organization without a strong balance.
Dedicated SOC
Dedicated SOCs create a team of internal security experts working as one group either in a single location or virtually. A Dedicated SOC creates great security visibility and centralized expertise for the organization.
However, Dedicated SOCs require at least 5 full time experts to achieve 24/7/365 coverage and expensive tools to manage high volumes of alerts with a smaller staff. This SOC model is best for larger enterprises with few offices.
Command SOC
Command SOCs use a dedicated group of IT experts working as one group to oversee a network of smaller SOCs monitoring specific infrastructure or locations. Centralized command and management of distributed expertise provides the most comprehensive option for in-house SOCs.
However, Command SOCs are incredibly resource intensive. Ironically, Command SOCs can also lead to gaps in responsibility between branch SOCs and the Command SOC unless they are designed and coordinated very carefully.
Only the largest organizations can afford in-house Command SOCs so they don’t tend to exist outside of governments, banks, cloud providers, and other huge enterprises.
Co-Managed SOC
Co-Managed SOCs use a combination of local on-site monitoring solutions and staff in addition to external resources. This model provides enormous flexibility for tools and staffing and enables options to outsource either low-end tasks to low-cost resources (overseas offices or vendors) or high-end threat hunting to more experienced staff (consultants, MDR vendors, etc.).
As with Command SOCs, poor implementation can lead to responsibility gaps and missed alerts so this method requires careful coordination and assignment of responsibility (and liability). This option is best for enterprises dedicated to retaining on-site security talent or that wants to supplement existing resources as they grow. Read more at Clearnetwork's Blog
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